Wednesday we moved into the next stage of preparations for the 2017-18 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague season with the first three of 16 Media Days. Olympiacos Piraeus was one of the first teams to host the local and international press for countless interviews, photos and promotional videos.

Last season's Turkish Airlines EuroLeague runner-up, Olympiacos Piraeus, got the final piece it was looking for to complete its roster with the addition of swingman Hollis Thompson, the club announced on Thursday.

With its core of winners intact, Olympiacos came into the season with great confidence, but stumbled with an 18-point opening night loss at Real Madrid. The Reds rebounded immediately with three straight wins. The team really got going in the middle third of the regular season with a pair of four-game winning streaks over an 11-game stretch. In fact, Olympiacos boasted a 13-3 record between Rounds 10 and 25, by the end of which its 18-7 record had Coach Sfairolpoulos’s men in third place and only one win behind the joint-leaders. The team managed to plow through the grueling part of the schedule despite losing Daniel Hackett for the season in December, while team leaders Vassilis Spanoulis and Georgios Printezis each missed four games during that period. Olympiacos cooled down at the end of the regular season and dropped its final three games to rank third at 19-11. The team was tested in the playoffs by Anadolu Efes Istanbul, but as the Reds have shown over their rich history, this is a club that never quits. After losing Game 2 narrowly at home and Game 3 on the road, Spanoulis scored 18 and the defense held Efes to 9 fourth-quarter points to stave off elimination and force a decisive Game 5 at home. This time Spanoulis poured in 22 points to guide the team back to the Final Four. A balcned team effort made the difference against CSKA Moscow in the semifinal, but Fenerbahce in Istanbul proved to be too high a hurdle in the championship game, though Olympiacos can still proudly wear the title of Turkish Airlines EuroLeague runner-up.

EuroLeague

SEASON

COMPETITION

RECORD

FINISH

2016-17

EuroLeague

23-14

Runner-up

2015-16

EuroLeague

14-10

Top 16

2014-15

EuroLeague

22-8

Runner-up

2013-14

EuroLeague

20-9

Playoffs

2012-13

EuroLeague

22-9

Champion

2011-12

EuroLeague

14-8

Champion

2010-11

EuroLeague

13-7

Playoffs

2009-10

EuroLeague

17-5

Runner-up

2008-09

EuroLeague

14-8

Semifinals

2007-08

EuroLeague

12-11

Playoffs

2006-07

EuroLeague

13-9

Playoffs

2005-06

EuroLeague

12-11

Playoffs

2004-05

EuroLeague

4-10

Regular Season

2003-04

EuroLeague

8-12

Top 16

2002-03

EuroLeague

10-10

Top 16

2001-02

EuroLeague

14-6

Top 16

2000-01

EuroLeague

9-5

Quarterfinals

TOTAL:

241-152

History

Greek powerhouse Olympiacos Piraeus is one of the most successful clubs of the past decade with six Final Four appearances, five trips to the championship game and a pair of EuroLeague crowns. Olympiacos was founded in the 1930s and lifted its first Greek League title in 1949. The Reds’ golden era came in the 1990s, when Coach Ioannis Ioannidis led Olympiacos to four Greek League titles between 1993 and 1996 and to the EuroLeague Championship Game in both 1994 and 1995, though it lost against Joventut Badalona and Real Madrid, respectively. When Dusan Ivkovic came to the bench in 1997, Olympiacos promptly became the first Greek winner of a triple-crown – Greek League, Greek Cup and EuroLeague titles – the latter by beating FC Barcelona 73-58 in Rome on the shoulders of David Rivers, Georgios Sigalas, Eddie Johnson, Panagiotis Fasoulas, Franko Nakic and Milan Tomic. Olympiacos made it back to the Final Four in 1999 and lifted the Greek Cup in 2002, before coming one victory shy of a spot at the 2003 Final Four. After a few quiet years, the Reds returned to prominence in the 2005-06 season by returning to the EuroLeague playoffs and the Greek League finals. Olympiacos finally got back to the EuroLeague Final Four in 2009 in Berlin, however it lost in the semifinals – as well as the Greek League and Greek Cup finals – to archrival Panathinaikos. In 2010, Olympiacos reached the EuroLeague championship game in Paris, but Barcelona walked away with the crown. The club added to its trophy case with back-to-back Greek Cups in 2010 and 2011 and, with Coach Ivkovic back at the helm, broke the long spell in 2012 by lifting the EuroLeague and Greek League titles for the first time in 15 years behind superstar guard Vassilis Spanoulis, and with the likes of Georgios Printezis, Kyle Hines and Kostas Papanikolaou battling and bruising. Olympiacos topped heavy favorite Barcelona in the Istanbul semis and then rallied from a 19-point deficit to edge CSKA Moscow, 61-62, on a last-second shot by Printezis. One year later, with new head coach Georgios Bartzokas on the sidelines, Spanoulis repeated his heroics and earned EuroLeague MVP and Final Four MVP honors in London, where the Reds sent CSKA and Real Madrid away to defend the EuroLeague title in style. Olympiacos missed out on the trophies in 2013-14, but Coach Ioannis Sfairopoulos oversaw its return to the Greek throne and to the EuroLeague title game in 2015. Olympiacos cruised to the playoffs, where it ousted Barcelona in an instant-classic series on Printezis’s buzzer-beating triple in Game 4. At the Final Four in Madrid, the Reds won a come-from-behind semifinal thriller against CSKA Moscow before bowing out in the championship game against Madrid. At home, Olympiacos won 32 of the last 33 league games on the way to winning its second Greek League title in 18 years. Olympiacos missed the EuroLeague playoffs in 2016 after 10 consecutive appearances, but bounced back in the Greek League, getting two road wins against Panathinaikos in Athens on game-winning three-pointers by Spanoulis to defend its Greek League title. Last season the results flipped with fantastic EuroLeague run to the club’s fifth championship game in eight seasons, but it fell to the Greens in the Greek finals. Now the Reds look to battle for all available trophies again this season.